Perfection is in the mind. And perfection for me, in my present state of mind, is being mindful of the presence of nature, of nature perfecting itself despite all the attempts of humanity to disrupt that process of perfecting. Indeed, the attempted disruptions themselves illustrate perfectly the perfectibility of nature itself, a perfectibility no human technology could ever match. And in these long summer days of warmth and sunshine, as nature surges towards its climax of fruitfulness, I watch with awe and wonder at the mysterium tremendums of the hive-mind of honey bees manifesting itself perfectly as the bees fly back across my wildflower meadow of a garden to my bee-hive, loaded with pollen of many different hues, ready to make the stores of honey that is one of nature’s wonder-foods. The mere sight of the bees, amidst the verdant splendour of the wildflowers, is honey for my soul and stirs me into deeper mindfulness of the exquisite pleasure of just relaxing into being harmoniously present with nature, of just enjoying the blissful moment of nature’s natural non-duality, of mind mindfully noticing nature minding its own business.

The Patience of Enduring Suffering

Enduring suffering is a natural state for all of us. If we did not experience suffering we would have no negative karma ripening. This is not possible in this world, so we all experience suffering. Understanding that brings compassion – “I am one of many”. Enduring suffering is the natural state for our whole life. Happiness is a relief from suffering when things seem to be going right. But things cannot go right for ever, and even apparently fortunate people experience unhappiness. “What is my unhappiness compared with anybody else’s? It is natural for me to experience unhappiness because everybody else is.” Understanding this is gaining the Truth of Buddha’s First Teaching – the teaching on the First Noble Truth, True Sufferings.

We should not be unhappy when we are experiencing pain, but glad for we are experiencing dharma. When we are happy, and things are going well, we hardly remember Dharma, but when we are suffering we can use it to remind us of the truth of Buddha’s teachings – All Beings experience suffering.

The Patience of Not Retaliating

The reason we retaliate is because unexpected harm causes anger to flare within us. This is Buddha’s second Noble Truth (True Origins) which states that all harm arises from either delusions or karma.

Examining my mental continuum throughout all my actions,

As soon as a delusion develops

Whereby I or others would act inappropriately,

May I firmly face it and avert it. (Geshe Langri Tampa)

We expect not to be harmed and so when we are, anger rises automatically. As long as we expect not to be harmed, so will we always have anger. Only when we have changed our expectation to that which understands the true nature of phenomena is to arise in dependence on karma, will be free of anger arising. Anger arises only because we do not expect the world to conflict with our wishes. Because Buddha teaches that the world will always conflict our wishes, in the three states of discontent, so anger will always arise. When we have conquered the three states then the world will not conflict our wishes because our wishes will be in line with Buddha’s teaching, and anger and all other delusions will not arise.

The Patience of Definitely Perceiving Dharma

When we start to perceive emptiness, and the way it arises, we can face up to Dharma. Dharma means phenomena or things. So, when we are seeing things we are perceiving dharma. Allowing things to happen is a way to practise. For instance, if we are at a festival and we see a group of people who appear to be not too pleased with us we could slink off, or we could go up to them and face our karma. In the latter case, we are going against the natural way of things to avoid conflict. By accepting the pain of unhappiness we are accepting karma – and it disappears. This is a way to release karma. If we face up to all unpleasant karma, eventually we will have nothing left to throw at ourselves. We will be free of our negative karma. This ends the Buddha’s teaching on the second Noble Truth – True Origins. By bringing karma, negative karma, to an end – all suffering is extinguished (nirvana, True Cessation, The third Noble Truth) and we are enlightened (the completion of True Paths, The fourth Noble truth).

This Patience could also be called the Patience of Definitely Sitting in Dharma. Attempting to meditate can be painful on our time, our pleasure, our body and our mind. As we overcome each of these we can congratulate ourselves on definitely practising the Patience of Sitting. The suppleness in our mind and body arising from the accumulation of virtue and the release of pure wind is our reward. As we realise emptiness so our meditation continues even when we are not sitting. Metaphorically this is still The Patience of Sitting in Dharma because we see all phenomena as related to our mind, and hence related to our karma. Since all negative karma is painful, so are all phenomena arising from that karma. This is Definitely the Practice of Sitting in Dharma where ‘Definitely’ means emptiness.